Saturday, January 14, 2012

Life, Living and History

Over the course of the last ten years or so, I began to wonder where the heck I came from. What was my family background and who were my ancestors? My son and I worked together looking into my past as well as trying to find out where Mia's ancestors came from. So we went searching over the Internet and on Mia's side of the family we got very lucky. While we found some information on our own, our investigation led us to a gentlemen who had done the whole family tree right back to Finland where her mother's ancestors had their origins. We were not so lucky with her Dad or any of my family.

I had never heard of a diary or journal until I was in my twenties. And by then, the last thing I wanted to do was keep a journal of my daily mundane life. And I didn't ask my parents or grandparents about their background. My grandparents passed away without depositing any information about who they were or where they came from. Beyond being hard working people who raise some great kids, I had no idea about their past and they certainly didn't see the need to pass anything down the line either written or oral. While I did talk to my dad about the past, I really never got the opportunity or I didn't think to ask about my mom's side of the family before she passed away fairly early. My dad lived until just a couple of years ago and was 94 when he passed and my son and I both questioned him about his past and the family. Dad had a hard time remember much when we would ask him a question but sometimes he would just pop up with an answer or some other annotation later in the conversation or even days later.

Anyway, I digress. The point of all of this is a combination of happenings that have set me to wondering. Both my son and I have kind of stopped looking for the remainder of the family. However, starting the blog as a way to keep in touch with family and friends has actually got a family journal of sorts started. Great. It tells you what I want you to know about what I did on a given day, week or month but does very little to actually give a family history. Then along comes Christmas 2011 and my son hands Mia and I, each, a copy of "The Story Of A Lifetime". While it looks like a huge book to read, it is actually a thought starter. Filled with blank pages that have one line questions and you are supposed to insert answers by writing on the lines provided. Questions like:

What are the most important things you learned from your father?

If he is deceased how and when did he die? Where is he buried?

Tell about the first motion picture you saw?

What were your favorite radio and television shows?

What did you do in summers when school was out?

There are 380 pages of questions that require answers. Thought starters. And since I have no journal or diary it is going to be very hard to answer many of the questions. In fact, I intend to use WORD to make notes to answer the questions prior to writing one word in the book.

Another incident occurred that got me thinking about how nice it would be to that a journal or diary. I download a book from the library to my version one Kindle called, "True Compass: A Memoir" by the late Senator Edward Kennedy. It is the life story of a man who struggles with being the youngest of a group of successful individuals and how those individuals molded him into the man he became. They all had journals.

And as unfortunate as it may sound not one in my families ever mention the fact that it might be a good idea to keep a journal of my life and what happened as I grew to manhood and beyond. I am by no means a particularly old person however the memories aren't as vivid as they were say 50 years ago so I am going to have some issues getting the facts out.

And then, as always, there are things done in the past that are best left in the past. Kind of like, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas". You get the idea.

So as I move forward into 2012 and beyond, I will be trying to dig out some of the memories of the past and write them down for prosperity. This could get really interesting or be totally boring.

It sounds like everyone is having a pretty good start to 2012 from the blogs I follow. Again, I apologize for not comment on a lot of what I read. Many times I don't have an opportunity to look at the postings until the weekend and as you can well imagine there have been as many as 200+ postings in on week. If I could look at them daily it would be much more manageable.

We expect to spend the afternoon with our two oldest grandkids. We are taking them to their horse riding lessons. Should be fun and a photo op.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.....even with no pictures.